Friday, March 18, 2011

DealDash and Penny Auctions

If you want an unbiased review of DealDash and penny auctions, read on. Unlike the majority of what you read or see online about penny auctions, I am not being bribed by any company and my information is factual not just a mad person spouting off about it being a scam. I signed up last week for DealDash. Read below for my synopsis.

First thing to consider: When you see that someone has won an iPad for $30.00 what that really means is that 3000 bids were placed on that item. Each bid is one "cent". Each cent purchased at full price on DealDash is 60 cents. Those 3,000 bids actually equal $1800 for the company. At the Apple Store an iPad 64 with wi-fi costs 699.00. That's more than twice the amount of the actual product. I'm sure they are buying these products in bulk, thus discounted which equates to probably an even larger profit. The winner has paid whatever they dolled out in "credits" or bids plus shipping.

I'll explain more in detail how $30 really equals $1800. Each bid for an item goes up in one cent increments. $30.00 equal 3000 cents. You have to buy that ability to spend that "cent". It will cost you 60 cents in advance for each "penny" you want to bid. DealDash calls each of these "cents" credits. Each credit or "penny" equals 60 cents. So 60 cents (the cost of a bid or "cent") times 3000 bids or cents equals $1800. They offered me a "deal" last week when I signed up at supposedly half off. I bought 200 credits for $60. That means that each credit was 33 cents, or so I thought (which I explain below). People can also bid on credit bundles. For example, there was an auction for 40 credits in which 5 people participated. If one were to buy 40 credits from DealDash it would cost them $24. The final price of the auction was .69 (which means DealDash made about $41 for something they value at $24). If I divided this up equally, each person bid 13.8 times. This means the winner probably spent about $8.28 if their credits were purchased at the .60 cost. If they purchased the credits at half off like I did or won the credits for a fraction of the cost, that causes a serious imbalance in purchasing power between bidders.

Is it legit? Well yes. Is the vending machine at the arcarde, mall, or grocery store legit in which you put in a quarter and win an Ipad, or other such virtually impossible to win prizes? Well... yes. Right? This is more like put in $20 or more and compete with 10 or more other people to win that same prize. 9 times out 10 you will walk away with nothing. It's essentially gambling and the majority of those who play seem to have that gambling mentality. A lot of, I will call them players rather than bidders because it is more of a game in which money is at stake and is actively being gambled, will spend far more on the gambling than on the actual winning. I watched many people blow way more on a product than the value, not win, and then blow more on other products. How are these people affording to do this? Picture the elderly in Vegas who are on oxygen surrounded by chain smokers throwing their life savings into the mouth of a slot machine because they might win the big one. That slot machine will probably never pay them the amount they have spent. When people like that are competing against you to win a product, you have a very low chance of winning. They are willing to spend whatever it takes to win. The company, however, will allow you to buy the product at retail price if you bid and lose and you will get back your credits. Oh, but there is a big gaping caveat that comes with this.

If you are looking to buy that 3G Kindle with wi-fi for your sweetie for their birthday, you may think that putting $70 in bids is worth it if you were going to buy it full retail anyway. You and a few others may be thinking this. Then there are those that are gamblers and are not really concerned with how much they throw into the pot. The thrill is in the chance of winning. You may get very lucky, come in at the end of someone's budget on an auction and be willing to spend your $70 and win. Or you may put $70 into it and lose everything because another player decides to start bidding after you've thrown in your $70 budget. Oh but you can buy the product at "retail" value and get your credits back, right? Amazon is selling the 3G 6in. screen Kindle with wi-fi for $189. If you want to buy it from DealDash, you'll have to pay $289, plus shipping I'm sure. If you did decide that you wanted to pay $100 over retail for it, you wouldn't be able to cash your credits back in either. You are stuck with the credits you purchased.

Some people get lucky and are able to win credit packages of 40, 80, 150, 300, or occasionally 800 for perhaps a few dollars (in actual money spent not "cents"), perhaps late at night when not a lot of people are on or if there are a lot of other auctions going on and no on is paying attention. It can sometimes be random how lucky someone can be. I have also had the experience of bidding a high amount on an item and part of my bids were given back or credited to me as I was bidding. I'm not quite sure on the rule of this. Perhaps for every 25 cents I bid I get a portion of it back. My theory is that this is a way to drive up the final cost of an item. If I'm given credits back, then I suddenly have more to spend on this item, giving the item a longer period of time to be exposed to other players that may just want to to throw a credit or two in, thus increasing their profits. So if you're a power bidder because you've invested a lot initially or you've won credits disproportionally to the amount the majority of those who play on DealDash spend for credits, then you may have the ability to spend bids like it's water coming out of a faucet and muscle your way into winning whatever you please. There are certain players on DealDash that most know not to get involved in a bidding war with because most likely they will not have the bottomless pit of credits these players have. It's sort of like communism, some people are hooked up with deals on credits and the majority are stuck with not a lot.

Though I consider most casinos unscrupulous in the way they pray on people with gambling addictions, at least those addicts have the ability to cash out at any time. I sent several letters to DealDash asking for my money back as I spent about $30.00 worth of my $60 of credits. I spent 89 out of 200 credits and guess what? They offered me $6.60! They said I really purchased 100 credits for $60 and was given 100 more credits free. That's not the impression I was given when I purchased the credits. I was given the impression that the credits were "half off" meaning that I was paying .33 per credit, not .60 for 100 credits and the others were "free". Dave (the owner I emailed) was not going to let me have the correct portion of my money back no matter how I tried to politely debate with him. After several emails back and forth I was stuck with what I had. I actually did okay and came out with a bunch of stuff that I used for birthdays and Mother's Day. However, I would NEVER bank on taking a set amount of money and getting lucky and winning more than I put in. I bid on items that were not coveted items like iPads, TV's, laptops, cameras and other expensive electronics. I have seen on rare occasions where a player has won one of these items for an unusually low amount. I'm not sure if it was because they were a power bidder and no one wanted to waste their money bidding against this player, or if they were just lucky. I also bid very early in the morning (4 or 5am as I am up at that time anyway) or very late at night. I haven't played on DealDash since maybe April. It seems that items are being won for even higher amounts than I remember (from April 2011 to now July 2011).

Deal Dash's tactics remind me of credit card companies. In the same way that people get into major credit card debt, they don't really think about the physical money in their possession. They do not have to think about their balance. Instead their purchasing power is the only thing at play. Is your limit $500 or $50,000? Or in the case of penny "auction" sites is your purchasing power 100 credits or 10,000 credits (all of which could be acquired from $0 to .60 a credit)? I really wish they would be forced to change their label to penny gambling sites. An individual sees something they want and it is as easy as swiping a card or spending a credit (and from my examples above the true value of that credit is hard to determine). I believe DealDash uses psychology to make people think they have more than they do by giving them large amounts of credits through credit deals or by being credited when large amounts of credits are being spent. When you buy credit packages from so-called auction sites, consider that money gone. You may win a prize, you may not. I think the term auction is not a fair way for these companies to label themselves. These sites really encompass a form of gambling. When a real auction occurs peoples' bids are considered offers, not real payments until the auction has been won. This is more like people spending chips at a casino to win a prize. In this sense, if you know what you are getting into and consider that money gone as you should when you decide to put $100 down at a black jack table, you'll be fine. Think of it as gambling and not a way to get a great deal. My advice would be to go online and watch the "auctions" armed with the information I have given you, and then if you still want to play, buy $5 or $10 worth of chips.

AMENDMENT AS OF MARCH 2013:

I took a look at their site today for the first time in a
long long time and it looks like there have been some changes.

First, new bidders cannot enter an auction after an item has
reached $5.00.That really equates to
500 bids which equals $300 if a player pays the full price for a
"cent"- .60.As I am writing
this there is a $300 Samsung vacuum that has reached $38.00 ($2,280!! in full
bid asking price) and it is still going up. There are 70 players locked in. If you hover over the players' names you can see when a player first
entered a bid (at $1, at $4.5, etc).Though I don't really see what the benefit of that really is?Deal Dash initially makes the impression that
they've made some concessions to appear fair in that they've put the no new
bidders limit at "$5.00" thus appearing to control the unfairness of players entering into an "auction" when an item has reach astronomical limits.In
reality $300 is a pretty high amount before other players are locked out. One
player can start at .01 while another jumps in at $4.59 ($298.40).

I cannot imagine the mansions the consumers on Deal Dash are
supplying the owners.They are making fortunes
off this site and it should be illegal mainly because they mislead unsuspecting
consumers into thinking they they are participating in an
"auction". And when many of us think of online auction, we think of Ebay, a legit auction. Not to mention in a standard gambling facility players can cash out their chips and walk away with their true remaining cash. This is not the case on Deal Dash.

The second change I noticed is thatit actually looks like they are charging fair
market value for a product now.So if
you don't win, you can just choose to pay full price for it.I checked Amazon and on an array of items
(electronic to kitchen) and it looks to be on par. Kudos for that.

After doing a cursory review of the current Deal Dash site
(as of March 2013) it looks like items are going for much higher than I
previously remember.Perhaps this is
because a player can just lock in an amount, walk away (automatic bidding), and
then choose to pay the full retail asking price and not lose anything.I imagine there are a lot of players that are
locked in after the $300 limit and are willing to pay the full retail price
rather than lose the triple amounts they may have put into an item through
"bids".What do other current
players think?Have they just become an
online retailer?Where is the deal?Has the site become a revolving door as Ilike2winbig puts it? Is your cash perpetually locked
into the site because there are no deals to be had, you are forced to purchase an item, and you are just stuck with
unusable/un-winnable bids? Purchasing power has gone down and prices go up. $500 for a loaf of bread anyone?

I've tried this a bit....if you don't use the bidbuddy system, you cannot bid with less than 2 seconds. On EVERY single item (10-12) I've tried bidding on, the "checking" sign comes on for a winner between 3 and 2 seconds left. They want you to use the auto bid thing so you aren't as aware of how much you are actually spending. Several times I have bid on a "bid packet" only to see the same amount start later and go for way less than the current bid. It seems as though the ones people are really bidding on keep going. And...of course, buying bids with bids is an exercise in futility.

I started on deal dash a couple days with great caution as a matter of simply having fun and checking it out. I found it to be interesting,however,frightening. Frightening because I'm thinking of the people at home getting sucked into this realizing it is/can be addicting JUST LIKE gambling. However,just as you said,they have not made the conscious decision "I'm going to go to the casino and blow my life savings". Thank you so much for your article. One major red flag came in realizing that there is no real 'end of auction' that I was informed of. It could go for two minutes or 3 days. However long they've(deal dash sponsors)been able to egg people on in continuing to bid.

Excellent article. I have a question. I understand one can purchase bid packs for certain money which cost the player anywhere from 15 to 60 cents per bid. And I do understand upon wining a person will pay for merchandise and if they lose they can use buynow option and get their bids back. Now here my question: assuming a person purchased 200 bids, will they get charged again 60 cents for placing those bids that they bought? in short, we pay to buy a bid, and next we pay again to place the bid with already bought?

I made the mistake of not reading the whole description before I bought "bids". I read it to say that if you didn't win the auction you could get your bids back. That's COULD get your bids back. I didn't see till later that you had to buy the item at full price before you got your bids back. I could have just don't to Best Buy and purchased the item and not bough bids that I cant cash out. So If I did buy the item at full price and get my bids back where could I use them? On another item that I would eventually have to purchase at full price in order to get those bids back, and so on. Yes it is a real scam. Lesson learned.

dealdash=BOLDERDASH. When I registered, like a fool, I didn't realize I'd be out $36 a pop! at a virtually impossible site to "WIN" (lmao) anything unless you spend 24/7 playing around with it. Can't believe I was one of the STUPID ones falling for this crap.Thanks for your blog!!!!

I've forgotten the name of another penny auction site that nailed me for $149 for their "free" credits. They took down the parts of their website that had the false advertising by the time the charge hit my statement. I contested the charge, was threatened that they would ruin my credit rating, my house and cars are paid for so that wasn't much of a threat. I continued to contest it and began searching for witnesses to their deception. It took a few months, but the credit card company decided in my favor and reversed the charge.Be VERY cautious with these organizations. They can rip you off legally as Deal Dash does or illegally without you seeing it coming. I read ALL the fine print before giving them my credit card number. Then they changed their website!

When I had purchased my initial credits, they told me my credits were going to be "half" off 60 cents, which would be 30 cents per credit. They did not say buy 100 credits, get another 100 credits free (Buy one, get one free). These are two different things. Then they changed what the value of my purchase was to benefit themselves when I requested a refund for my credits based on the fact that I thought their site (very rashly) was an auction site initially. The owner emailed me back and told me that I purchased 100 credits at one price and received the second 100 free. I contested this with him and we exchanged a few "diplomatic" emails back and forth, and then I realized it was pointless and to learn a lesson from it. I'm glad to have shared my mistake with others if no one else has to throw a dime they don't want to away. It appears it is this company's policy to let the consumer be financially liable for their misuse of words like "auction" and "half off". Buyer beware.

Thanks so much! I had figured out that people were spending a boatload of $$ for things....and didn't know it or didnt care. (gambler mentality) But when you added the part about the 1/2 price, that was the clincher. It's not illegal but it is darn sure bordering on immoral.

I appreciate the effort that went into your article. I am a DealDash "player" and have gone in with my eyes wide open. I'm aware of how much each of my bids cost as well as the penny increments that the auctions increse by. I've done rather well with my wins/purchases. My belief is that one must always be careful and cautious when signing up for any of these types of sites and make sure you've done your research so as not to overbid. As you said, it is like gambling and as with gambling you should not spend what you can't afford to lose.

Sorry I'm just answering this. Yes, I got everything from Deal Dash that I won. This was several years ago though. I've heard from others that some penny auction sites are not very reliable at shipping out products.

Going to agree completely. Amazon is one of my favorite online shopping sites. They more often than not have lower prices than retail stores. Thanks for the info in the blog. Sounded relatable and to the point. Prefect deterer for me to stay away from this site and others. Thanks!

Deal Dash has been doing a lot of advertising on facebook lately and I have been trying to tune it out, assuming it was a hoax. But after seeing dozens of featured ads I caved and looked in to their site. It looks too good to be true, and now I see that it basically is. So glad to have found your post.

Evidently things have changed since you posted this because today (9/18/14) I went to their site to look around and I was not allowed to see anything before becoming a member and giving them my credit card number.

my ol' lady believes everything she sees on tv, so was whining to go on the place.you're right. you can't see anything without joining, and, even though it says you can join free, you can't. they want the credit card information, AND $75 for 500 bids

So very glad I read this! I was confused about how DealDash worked--their site is pretty vauge about explaining it all (and for good reason--looks like they are racking in the profits!). I was about to plop down the $36 for 60 bids but decided to check into seeing what my odds of actually winning these "fantastic deals" were. I will give DealDash some credit, coming from a social media standpoint: Their facebook ad campaign is working amazingly well for them!

I echo Nicole's statements above -- after seeing some friends who I consider to be at least somewhat reputable on Facebook promoting Deal Dash (knowingly or not) I figured I would at least see what the big fuss was about. Very informative article that saved me time researching and possibly some money, too. :)

thank you so much for this. The old saying "If it's too good to be true" still holds water. At least for me there has been a strong push this week maybe because holidays are getting closer. I'll stay far away and shop with care on Black Friday thank you very much!

Thank you for all the comments. You're welcome! I'm glad to have helped! I haven't been on the site in ages, but at the time I wrote this blog, I wanted to write to a consumer watch dog group and ask them what they thought of a company (in my opinion) misleading consumers into thinking their site is an auction, thus gaining their trust and wallet. False advertisement? Also online gambling in the US? It's legal, but for how long? And since Deal Dash is heavily advertising on Facebook who are they advertising to? Ramen eating college students with a credit card? People in their teens, 20s, and 30s. Lorian, you were right, immoral, but in my opinion it should be illegal, especially because they are not labeling their business accurately. It's misleading.

Thank you so much for your post. Your information helped me understand that it is gambling. At first I thought it might be like ebay until I saw where you have to purchase credits. That raised a warning flag for me. I have hidden their post on my Facebook page.

You spent quite a bit of time on this ordeal, and I have benefited. Thank you.

I have played on this penny site for a couple weeks. I am happy with what I've won. I would not recommend going after the big items because of all the bidding but the cheaper items are the way to go. its def not for everyone but if u look at the bid money as gambling money u will be fine. because when u gamble u know there is a good shot ur not getting ur money back.

Agree. I enjoyed winning my products too. If sites like these were upfront with consumers about labeling their site as gambling rather than an "auction" I wouldn't have anything to really say. Adults have a right to gamble if they chose to.

Wish I had found your blog before I wasted $36. I did a search for Deal Dash and "scam," and nothing suspicious came up. I never thought about a search for DD and "gambling," until I played it for about 30 min. and realized its dependency on chance. Half of my bids didn't even register, so I'm not convinced that anyone has any control whatsoever in the timing of their bids. I have about 20 of my initial 60 bids left and I'll use them, but I'll never go back after that. I'm sharing your blog link on Facebook - perhaps it will save some folks the wasted time and money.

OMG! So glad you posted this. I keep seeing posts on my Facebook page about who won what at whatever price and I'm like yeah, right. That's when I decided to google "deal dash" and came upon this... thanks for the explanation.

Hi all, I ran across this blog during a Google search and thought that since it was still receiving recent post I’d relay my experience with the DealDash site. Shahla has done an outstanding job of explaining the mechanics of how the site works and the tactics THEY use to MAKE MONEY. My wife got sucked into the site after reading a post on Facebook. After a couple of fairly easy wins on some cheap items she decided to go for a Keurig coffee maker. Instead of bidding on only one item she decided to bid on about four different offerings. She ended up winning one coffee maker but we could have probably paid fair market price for two Keurig’s with what she spent on all bids used and the final price of the one Keurig she won. After seeing my bank account being quickly drained I signed up to the site to study it a little closer. For all practical purposes the site appears to be legal and we have received almost everything won. I used about 160 bids at 12 cents a bid to win a Nikon D5100 camera at a final price of less than $13.00, a $22.00 investment for a $500.00 fair market value item. Chances of that happening again are slim and I had to come up with some of my own tactics to pull it off. I’ve also won a Cannon EOS Rebel T3i at a final price of $130.00 and approximately 1,600 bids, about a $350.00 investment on a $600.00 fmv item. But I’ll also admit that I have lost a lot of money going through the learning curve of how and when to bid. Bottom line is that individuals need to study the site and be fully aware of what they are getting in to before committing to spending their money. There are deals to be made, but also a lot of money to be lost. If the allure of the site is just too much for you to ignore my advice to you is to STUDY, STUDY, STUDY the site before attempting to place any bids. You can do this by bookmarking several items, watch how bidders are pursuing the item and see if you can pick up on some of their tactics. If after all is said and done you decide you just have to jump in, just remember that while the site itself has tactics to lure you in, other bidders also have tactics they use to win items. As Shahla states, they call this an auction but you are actually gambling that you can win an item. Go in with the attitude that you are there to have fun, set a limit on how much money you are willing to LOSE, and be prepared and willing to LOSE IT. Maybe you will luck up and actually end up on a deal. Just be careful because the site can be addictive and as in any gambling adventure, you can lose a lot of money.

It is so easy to lose money on this site. I started tracking what I won vs. what I was spending. So far I'm still ahead. I only bought bids when they are 17 cents. For example I used 2 bids to win an Amazon gift card worth $15, my final cost including bids was 37 cents. I also won a pair of binoculars for 40 cents (total with bids). All in all I've spent only $65 on bids in total and I've won $80 in products. I still have about 200 bids left and after I use those up I'm done. I'll quit while I'm ahead.

Thank you so much for talking the time to inform people.I would like to give my input on penny auctions. Please bear with me this might be a bit lengthy.I started on a different auction site in January and have actually won over 1700 items worth $90000. You name it, I won it, but I am fully aware that I paid close to $45000 for all of it. I keep close track of every bid I place, how much each auction I won actually cost me in bids, s&h, taxes etc. I monitor auctions for awhile until I start bidding and I only bid on items I am willing to pay full price if I don't win. The worth mistake newcomers make is going for the big ticket items and end up paying full price. There are the very few lucky ones, me included, that actually win a $1500 product with 3 bids, but they are truly only a few. I am very please with that penny auction site since all bids go towards the purchase price if you don't win and you can't overbid,hey cut you off when you reach the value of the product.Now to Deal Dash. I purchased the special pack of bids they had and started bidding end of October. I did win a few cheap items, but most of the time ended up buying the item and getting the bids back. I am still waiting for Deal Dash to send me most of the products. They show everything is being shipped when in reality it is not true. After a couple of weeks they inform you that the product is out of stock and they offer you something else for lesser value or your bids back plus some extra bids. So you chose the bids. It is like a revolving door and all you do is place way too many bids on their auctions. You can lock in as many bids you are willing to place and then leave the auctions and don't have to do anything else. If you lucky you win, but 99.9999% your not. Where as the other auction site you can only lock in 25 bids at a time and have to be actually present to win or loose. One day I did a test. I ran one on Deal Dash with bids locked in for the total value of the product. It was a $10 gift card and it took almost all day for the auction to end. I won it, but it cost me most of my bids and the auction total was up to $7.53. So I decided, I rather take my bids back and pay full price for the gift card. A $2200 TV they were bidding on for almost 3 whole days, luckily I just observed and you could actual buy that same TV on Amazon for $1400. So now they overbid, at least 5 paid full prize and one the lucky winner started from day one to bid and never stopped. My guess is that she put mega bids on the TV. The final auction was $753.80. So now she has to pay that, plus all the bids she placed I estimated about 11,000 x 17 cents = $1870 plus the auction price TOTAL cost close to $2600.

DealDash calls themselves the true and honest site. They are a total ripoff, scam,and most dishonest site. they don't disclose how many bids where place on that auction won, as to not discourage us idiots from bidding, because they are fully aware if everyone know how many bids it actually to win anything on their site they would be out of business.

Have contacted their custom service now everyday for weeks to find out where my products are and have not gotten one responds. The only daily email I get from them is that they slashed their bids from 60 cent to 17 cents, then to 15 cents and now they are at 13 cents. Are they just collecting all our money and then close shop. This is what is seems to me.

Sorry for going on and on, but I want people to beware that DealDash is bad and obviously I am one disappointed individual.

I like penny auction and there are really good sites out there, but DealDash is not one of them.

Hope I don't have too many typos, but I get a bit heated when it comes to DealDash.

Thank you for your input. Incredible how much other players will pay over retail for an item. Everything that I won was under $2.00 plus my bids. You're right the player you spoke of had to pay in all the bids she put down on a TV plus the winning price. Unless she decided to just pay retail in the end. And in that case the other players are either forced to buy the TV or lose the amount they tossed into the ring.

What sites do you bid (gamble) at that you would say are fair? Do you really have the option to purchase an item at true retail value or is it inflated?

I cannot comment on Deal Dash's customer service or shipping at this time. I received all of my items within a month. However, this was 2 years ago. Did you finally receive what you won?

I took a look at their site today after reading your post for the first time in a long long time and it looks like there have been some changes. **See my post above for an amendment at the bottom.

All of this "legitimacy" is still dependent on whether those bidding against you are actual people... or something fostered by dealdash themselves. I have no way of finding this out. I do, however, find the names and bios of many of those I see bidding against me as suspicious. Again, this is not a accusation, but I just have to wonder.

Reminds me of live auctions I attended years ago. It was common practice for the auctioneer to have buddies in the crowd bidding up an item then dropping it on a new bidder. Or sometimes there were no actual bids, the auctioneer just picked out of the air, or bought it back himself if it was too cheap. Same thing here. There is no regulation, so you don't know what's taking place. Whatever it is, you can believe its to make the owners rich, not the bidders.

I also wondered about the bidders on Deal Dash. Every time I visited the site, a lot of the same "people" were bidding, sometimes 24/7! I figured they were playing against a computer program. I bid on a few cheap things, but I noticed that as soon as I stopped bidding on one item, then came back to it, the item had "sold" for a ridiculously low price.

Thank you so much for your commentary. About a year ago a friend of mine was gushing about this auction site so I checked it out and spent $10. A reasonable investment if I win an auction. Got nothing. Lesson learned. I didn't do the math, but immediately figured out the auction site wouldn't do this unless there was some kind of profit for them.Beware of all sites that offer something for nothing.

I agree with you... However I think people should study how they should bid on deal dash, because there is an art to it... For example... I bought bids for $34 and I won 3 gift cards. $10 each and one $15 gift card and I only payed $0.5 for all of the gifts card combined, so I only spent $34.05 for $45 worth of gift cards.. so there is an art to it.. but for big ticket Items your better of going to Ebay or amazon, because in the long run you end up paying more for them... so you shouldn't but EVERYTHING on Deal Dash, but some things are worth it.

I am not certain if it was clarified above, but when the auction is over, the winner still must pay the final price noted.

I realized it was more akin to gambling and received my $34.00 credit buy-in back and was given 200 credits free as a promotion--What does it tell you when they refund my $34 and give me another $34 free?

So, I auto-bid all the free credits on a $25.00 Burger King gift card. I "won" at around 6 bucks, using about 3/4 of the free credits--I actually paid $6 for $25 and received it in the mail. But, adding the cost of the bids, it would have cost me more than $25 without the freebie credits.

DealDash is more like gambling except, unlike a Casino, the House Never loses.

I was about to sign up to this casino until a thought came to my mind. What if the company uses bots and just bit the thing up? You will run out of ammo and either buy the thing at retail or lose all your bids. I said forget it.Tom

I have played for a couple past days. Must tell you that at certain times and certain lots they turn on bots so people would drain their money making the bids. Just think about it, even if a bot wins they keep their product and made the bidders spend their money. On the very first day I saw how they did a very smart step by putting a 500$ Chevron Gas card "For Free" meaning you don't have to pay for it, but you gotta win. Jeez, at the time I was looking at it the price was 580 something. So you can imagine how much people would spend on just investing their money into the bid packs. I understand that most of those crazy bidders eventually got their bids back after buying a freaking 500$ card for buy it now price, but those bids they bought can't be exchanged back to money!!! So I see DD as a huge pyramid, that exists using those bid money because it's something the customers will never be able to take back from them. p.s.: My plan is to win the stuff for the money I spent and just quit gambling. I've almost reached my goal , probably only -6$ apart, which is fine. So I'll drain the rest of my bids and quit.Cheers!!!

It does seem like there are bots. And pyramid is a very accurate way of describing it. I cannot imagine not winning and just buying a $500 gift card and then to be stuck with all those bids you have to use.

I did the same thing, realized what it was, actually did quite well on wins (earlier in the site's history), and said see ya!

This blog is really helpful.I am really not sure why popular channels like CNN take up commercials from these sites. Its very misleading because people go by the CNN brand. Infact I learnt about deal dash on "The Situation Room". There are so many sites like this, some offer gift cards for cheap ( half off) and these deals are every day. Whenever I get tempted , I always discuss with my husband and this is what he tells me " Nothing is free or cheap any where in the world". So i always think what will the company make if they give us real "half off" deal?

All you people who avoid traps such as dealdash by buying at amazon and ebay should think again: why are you not buying from a local merchant? Where do you go for your donations? Who hires locally? Who pays those local property taxes to support your schools, the less fortunate and all the other benefits you receive? Have you asked amazon and ebay to support your local projects? Have you asked them to support your local kids sports teams? Of course not. You're too selfish.

I agree until your last comment. iPhones are mainly made in other countries, reported to perhaps be partially produced by sweatshops, and certainly Apple provides jobs in the US too. We all have things that take away jobs for the people in our neighborhoods, but we still buy them- all of us. Thus we take away the collective ability for people or corporations to even pay property taxes, and the lack of it trickles down to what we value most in our community.

Uh... Living in Lexington, KY I can tell you that Amazon pays a ton of money in school taxes, property taxes and sales taxes for our local community and for Kentucky. Amazon provides stable, well-paying permanent jobs with benefits here and elsewhere in Kentucky, and as companies go, they are an excellent company to have in our community. As for donations, Amazon has been a great sponsor of local educational venues and school fundraising. I realize that a lot of companies do this. I just didn't want to see Amazon being slammed with no response. All companies pay property and other taxes in the locales in which they are based. Think about it!

I am sorry, but their ad seems to be targeting low income and low intelligent people. They have their women talk like they are slow, it grates at me to listen to them, cause it seems like they are not speaking naturally, but putting on this strange voice. Oh well.

I have not seen their ads, but maybe they are bad actors? When I tried out DealDash there were no ads or really any credible pieces of information explaining what a penny auction really was/is. Like many of us our curiosity won and we put down the coin before we even knew what we were exactly using it for. I just wanted to ensure that people know what it is, and it seems like many have caught on. That isn't to say that it should be illegal for people to "play", because that is what it is, a place to play with money like any other casino on the planet or lottery.

You keep putting paid bids (coins) in to try to win something at a greatly reduced price. You lose your bid money if you don't win, and the only way to get your bid money back if you lose, is to do something you DON'T want to do, by agreeing to buy the same item at the full price, which is the reason you where bidding in the first place, to win it at less than full price. So you LOSE all you bid money and get nothing in return 95% of the time.

You win just enough items (small jackpots) to entice you to keep putting in more paid bids (coins) and losing money to try to finally win an item at a greatly reduced price (the jackpot) over and over again, just like with a slot machine trying to win the big jackpot.

i saw my grandmother doing the bidding on deal dash and saw she was not winning anything so i decided to bid on some $10 gift cards that were going for only a few pennies . low and behold i bid and won it for 1 cent i bid on another and again 1 cent. i bid on another product a official MLB baseball and won it for 3 cents and again another $10 gift card and won it for 3 cents....all of a sudden these products stopped showing up...we used the rest of the bids she had and won nothing else so i started to think these items r not showing up its like bait and switch....i went to my apartment next door and signed up on my computer diff ip internet connection and all...low and behold the same items that she was able to bid on showed up i went to her house with my lap top and the small items that were going for a few pennies she could not see them or look them up in the search area but on my computer they were right there they basically get u to sign up and will give u a few items no one else is bidding on than as soon as u win 4 small items they dont let u anymore thus making this straight BS they r scamming people for there money and a class action law suit would put them out of business

Thanks for the helpful information. I will stay away from Deal Dash. Pretty slick getting you to buy a "credit/penny" to bid on at cost of, say $60 cents each. Your little penny bids start adding up (in real money terms) quickly. Can I still bid on a No-No hair remover?

You have to PAY for each bid (bet) you make. Just like with gambling you pay for each bet your place.

People are bidding (BETTING) on the items in hoping at winning them so they DON'T have to pay full price for the item. To get back all the money you spent making bids (bets) if you lose the auction, you have to BUY the item at full price! Or lose all the money from your bids (bets).

The BUY NOW option to get you bid money back by buying the item at full price is really not an option, it's a form of extortion. Who do these people think you are kidding?

If there are 10 people bidding on an item, only ONE can win it at the greatly reduced price. The other 9 are forced to buy it at full price or lose all the money they bid on it. And in most instances they will choose NOT to buy it at full price so DealDash gets to keep all their bid money.

If people wanted to by stuff at full price they can go to any retail website, they don't have to come to DealDash for that. They come to DealDash to get items at greatly reduced prices.

DealDash is just like a sports bookie operation. The Bookie (DealDash) gets to keep all the money from hundreds of losing bets (Bids) which greatly exceeds what he pays out on a few winning bets.

The thing that really bothers me about sites like DealDash and Quibid is that they don't have to disclose in their TV advertising what the supposedly real customer actually had to spend to get that special price! They barely mention in small print against a similar colored background that so-and-so actually bid 772 times to get that $40 55-inch TV. That is incredible!

Just seen their advertisement on tv commercial. I always google company's before dealing with them. Your article popped up first and so glad. Is there any really good cheap sites for shopping out there besides Amazon and Ebay?

Hi there! You're a smart lady to do your research. I personally shop at Zulily. It's a flash sale site, which means that the sales change every few days. Larger companies to boutiques sell off their inventory on these types of sites. Zulily has great deals on children's clothing and toys, btw. Though sometimes Amazon can be about the same you just have to check. You cannot return items purchased from Zulily, but I've never received anything I wanted return. Some other flash sale sites do allow returns. Beyond the Rack is cheap though I've had issues with some of their deliveries. Rue la la is fashionable as well as Gilt ($$$$) and My Habit. Ideeli allows returns but they are focused more on adult clothing. Hope that helps to lead you to some fun deals.

I am so glad I read this before going on this site. I just seen it on TV and was going to check it out and see what I can get for the kids for christmas. OMG!!! I do not have money to waste on this bull crap website taking folks for granted. WoW!! This site should be banned some kind of way and found illegal. Thank you for the tip.

lets see if i have this right. on comercial and webpage it says if you dont win you get your bids or credits back. is it to my understanding that you only get them back if you do the buy it now option? so if i dont buy it now they keep the bids i just spent?

thanks for the info. I am sticking to ebay and listia like ebay listia is free to join free to bid and free to list actions

this is how listia works you bid with credits you get 500 when you join listia. and you get more credits by listing your own items and being active on Listia. When you list an item that you want to give away, you sometime get credits just for listing and then you get the amount of credits that people have bid on your items with at the end of the auction. You also get credits for leaving comments, asking questions, leaving feedback, bidding on items, adding photo's to your auctions or just logging in. There are plenty of ways to get credits.

for free!

Does it cost anything to be a member

Listia is absolutely FREE to join and be a part of. The only times you will have to use any money is when you bid on a item that says "Buyer Pays Shipping". There are some listers who list there items this way. Because, not everyone can ship for free.

My experience was: * i joined and spent $21 on 60 bids* i amazingly "won" 4 auctions for $10 gift cards (Burger King, Dunkin Donuts etc) for less than 10 cents * i "won" an auction for 60 bids for $5.40* i started looking for deals on stuff I wanted, figuring "what the heck, if I don't win, i'll pay full price". I identified a cordless phone set from Panasonic* I spent all 90 of my bids on that item, and did not win it

so: to summarize:* I spent $21 + $5 = $26* i "won" $ 40 worth of gift cards* I realized it was a worthless waste of time and money and stopped before giving them another penny.

NOTE 1 -- their "if their full price" were legit, I would use this site still. But you can *ALWAYS* find the same exact product on Amazon for 10-20% less. Their price is what I would call FULL RETAIL, which noone ever pays. So yeah, you can bid until you are blue in the face, and then pay FULL PRICE and get all of those bids back --- but you are paying WELL OVER FAIR MARKET PRICE

NOTE 2 - an auction for something worth $100 that sells even for $20 (great deal) takes 4 hours + to finish. (bids come in at, generally, 9 second intervals once the auction "settles in"). I don't know about you, but my time is move valuable that that.

Great read, I have been wondering about these "penny auction" sites for a while now, thinking how can they afford to sell these things for so low, now I understand thanks to your article!!! It was a good read, I agree it sounds like a scam to me!! Praying on the elderly, just like you stated in your review. Anyways good stuff warning people about these scam sites and excellent read!!! Thanks :)

Good comments on other websites are obviously plants by the deal.com people. This IS A SCAM, JUST LIKE QUI BIDS.. SAME SCAM. Its a ridiculous type of auction to keep you bidding and you never win. I lost enough money to buy what I wanted. The only winner is deal.com because they are racking up hundreds of dollars per minute for these items when people are bidding on them. There is NOTHING LEGIT ABOUT THESE BIDDING WEBSITES.

They let you "win" enough to whet a gambler's appetite, then you pay and pay. You get just enough to keep you paying, but overall you end up paying way more for things than you would if you bought them outright. Stay away!

Fun fact about DealDash. I was looking into joining an auction for a TV on DealDash and decided that, as an Engineer, I should run the numbers first. Turns out, you have a better chance of making money on the PowerBall than on saving money using DealDash!!! If you are interested in seeing the numbers, let me know!!

Thank you for the info on deal dash it has aloud me to make a informed discussion ,as for me i will stay with ebay and thanks for spending the time to put this article together. I have no doubt it has change the minds of a lot of people and exposed deal dash for what that ate doing.

My wife was watching TV and saw the DealDash ad. She asked if I would go to the site and check it out for her. I Googled the reviews and found your blog post. Thank you for the detailed, informative article and the follow-up. It saved an argument as I printed it and gave it to her to read. Keep up the good work, you are an excellent writer.

I just started with Dealdash--and have nothing but GOOD things to say. I purchased 500 bids for $75 and studied for 2 days patterns on how people bid. I used about $70 in bids and paid $15.90--so say $85 for a LG 50" LED TV that would have cost me $700. TV arrived damaged (thank you UPS) and it was replaced immediately. People get caught up in the competition of bidding and spend too much to not win in the end. From my first experience I love the site!

I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about so joined. Obviously I didn't read carefully and was automatically charged $36 to get started... didn't know that would happen. No I realize the futility of such a low amount of bids on the item I hoped to "win". So will bid of lesser items to recoup at least a small portion of my $36. Also I am going to the bank and cancelling/renewing my card used in the sighn-up because I do not trust this site. Sucker born every minute... now I join that society. Another NY rip-off.

I wish I read this before I joined DealDash. I even opened it for my sister and my mother only to find an email the following day that they are closing all accounts, reversing orders and taking money because the accounts are related. I would appreciate this if this was their way of insuring fairness. But, they are very fast on things like that. But, when I asked for their 100% money back guarantee (no questions asked) because I was not satisfied, I was asked a lot of questions and couple of weeks later I am still waiting for the refund. My mom also asked for 100% money back guarantee (no questions asked) because she was not satisfied, but they closed her account as being in connection with mine. We are trying to resolve this with them, but it takes precious time and energy and there are a lot of questions asked for a policy that states "no questions asked". All this from a website advertised as fair and honest.

There are way too many power bidders who don't mind spending more than the retail value. When I started following the names, those are the ones who usually get good deals. Probably because people just give up. I also agree that it may happen that someone wins an incredible deal occasionally, but it's a lottery, and psychology is the same. I will spend my bids (hopefully getting something) and then close up my account. This is not what I expected!

Great article; thank you for taking the time. I saw the TV commercial and was curious. I am skeptical by nature and live by "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is". Decided to research and glad I found your input.

I use QuiBids, first and foremost, you should only Bid on items you can afford/want to buy at full retail. Why? It's all about strategy and how much the other bidders are willing to bid/lose and the timing. I always go into an auction with the intent of paying full price, each $.60 cent bid is applied towards the Retail Price. Should I lose the auction, I just go to the "Buy It Now" and pay the remaining balance. I don't go bidding on $599.00 Xbox's because I'd probably get out bid/witted and then I would definitely LOSE all the bids I spent trying, because I cannot afford the remaining balance.

I bid on a $10.00 Walmart gift card and got it for less than a buck.

Example: Now I could have bid on it all the way up to the point I had to pay full retail and lose the auction, Did I lose the auction? Yes and No, But with "Buy It Now" I get it all back in the form of a gift card for a store I buy at every week.

I bid on a $89.00 nice 12 piece Knife Set. (We needed some new ones) With strategy and determination and not wasting bids in a bidding contest and patience and good timing, I was able to get it at $43.00 total bids spent. Also they have free shipping.

I entered one auction on a $15.00 random item, at 5 minutes you can place a bid. No one else had entered into it because it was small and everyone was focused on cooler items, so funny enough the clock ran out and I got it for that 1 bid ($.60) What ever the item is your bidding on is irrelevant, you're really bidding on the $ Dollar Value, I think it was Headphones, but you can go to the "You Choose It" and it will bring up the catalog and select from a bunch of different items at the same $15.00 value, I picked a Dash/Window Cell Phone Holder (Because my phone is always in the wrong spot in my truck)

I bid on a $70.00 Solar Rechargeable Emergency Radio, Lights, Phone Charger all the bells and whistles..lol... I got that for $34.00 all said and done.

I Bid on a $20.00 Gerber Thumb Flip Pocket Knife ( I had the same exact one I lost some where, and probably paid more for it one base) I got that for 1 Bid $.60

Now I don't win everything ( I just started, If I study more..lol) and HAVE had to bite the bullet and pay full retail. My bids spent go towards the final retail price UNLESS you are using voucher bids/free bids, I only bid on what I can afford to buy. With that said I have $100 in Omaha steaks/meat in the Mail, A $125.00 9" Android Tablet, and a nice $40 3 piece salt and pepper set. With timing and skill I have seen those same items walk away for $5 - $10 bucks.

I just now got a 6-Piece Hostess Set with Stand, you know those thingys that have 4 separate dishes for veggies/snacks, dip holder in the middle with carry tray, my wife wanted one some time back but I wasn't going to spend $60 bucks for it ..I'm not rich..lol. I won that auction and walked away with it for $27.00 in bids spent.

I've also bit the bullet on a $50.00 Walmart Gift card, But I really didn't lose because all my bids went towards the final cost. Now I'll just use that card instead of my debit card.. no biggie.

The biggest way to lose, is blowing all your bids against big spenders on big ticket items. Those folks pretty much are reselling those items on eBay or amazon. You can blow your 300 ($180.00) bids trying to win that $1400.00 TV and be out all that money because if you're like me, you probably cannot afford to spend $1,220.00 with the "Buy It Now" option

Do your homework, bid on items your willing to buy outright. I've checked a few web sites and looked up other bidders spend history and stats, some of these folks are any where from $10k to $150k in the hole. You can also learn when you see them bidding on items, it would be wise to avoid that auction until you build up some skills, you never know if they are Retail Store owners, or if they just took out a loan on their house to buy bids, or some bored Rich Mamas boy...lol

The reason for disallowing people from joining the auction after the price goes over $5.00 is that people are smart. Some people could probably learn to time the auctions, and wait to get it until it is likely to be profitable. I could not do that, but I could easily train a neural network or a support vector machine to predict when I should enter the auction. It wouldn't be perfect, of course, but I could certainly find a profitable solution mathematically. The $5.00 restriction makes it much less probable, if not impossible, to do that.

I signed up, not realizing that I automatically purchased 220 bids just by signing up! Be careful people! But...I did get my $$ back by winning 4 auctions at 1 cent each. 16 cents if you count the cost of the bid. The rest of the bids I just squandered away on trying to win. Oh well, I'm done now. People are so aggressive and I'm just not the competetive, gambling type. Thankfully!

I think live auctions are becoming better again for finding bargains. People are lazier these days and do everything online at home. So going to an auction in person can actually see less competition. One i go to regularly is Abbeys

Commercials do their jobs in wittling away at your common sense and luring you in with words of "fair" and "safe." The site will not even let you "check out the bidding" until you purchase a bid package ($68 (17¢ ea. supposedly for "beginners.") If you think "fair" how is having to purchase a 70 dollar package before you even see what you can bid on remotely "fair" or "safe"? To me, that was enough to sober me up on even checking out the bidding for curiosity's sake.

I saw a commercial today for this site and was curious and wanted to check it out. I had to become a member first before they would let me look around and had to give my credit card number which I never should have done. But I had just made a great purchase on ebay and was thinking this site would be similar.

I looked around and read the FAQ and finally figured out it was nothing like ebay. Much to my amazement and shock I received an email an hour later that I had purchased $70.00 worth of bids/credits. I swear I did not click on anything to purchase so couldn't figure out how this happened. I called my bank and they told me to send them an email and if they don't respond in 48 hours then to call back. There is no phone number for customer service, only email and I could find no way to close my account there. I am so mad at myself because for years I always have googled a company to see what people were saying about it but for some reason I didn't do that this one time. This is a sleazy place and should be avoided.

Thank you so much for your excellent article. I've just read through many of the responses and realized that I would basically be throwing my money away with DealDash. I was going to try it but Googled it first and found your article. I am so glad I did. I'll be staying with eBay and Amazon.

You folks do realize that this and other penny auctions sites use internal programmed 'bots' posing as bidders that goose the bidding and prices/profits for the site's operators. Never, ever use these sites! Never pay for the right to bid...Go to Ebay or Craigslist to get a deal. Some penny auction sites are currently under investigation by the FTC.